A 370-Million-Year-Old Mineral Deposits
The Khibiny Mountains are not a typical mountain range formed by colliding tectonic plates. Instead, the entire massif is an ancient igneous intrusion that pushed its way toward the surface approximately 370 million years ago, during the Devonian Period. It is one of the largest alkaline plutons in the world, covering an area of 1,327 square kilometers. The structure is a complex, ring-shaped body composed of multiple nested intrusions of silica-poor igneous rocks, primarily nepheline syenites.
This geological origin is the direct cause of its mineral wealth. The alkaline magma was low in silica but enriched in elements that do not easily fit into common rock-forming minerals. These "incompatible elements" include zirconium, niobium, strontium, and a suite of rare earth elements (REEs). As the magma cooled over millions of years, these elements became concentrated in the remaining liquid, eventually crystallizing into a diverse collection of minerals. Over 500 different mineral species have been identified here. Of those, more than 110 were first discovered in the Khibiny Massif, the massif is the type locality for many of the world's known minerals.